Let Lost Love Lie - Chapter 2

I had never said anything as brazen as “I can only sleep well with you beside me.”

But while I stood there in a daze, Shen Cizhou slipped through the doorway.

He walked to my bed, lowered his eyes, and quietly bent to arrange the bedding.

He had appeared without warning in only a thin robe, and it was still snowing heavily outside. I could hardly order him straight back out.

I forced myself to speak.

“But… but we hardly know each other.”

His fingers paused.

Counting on my fingers, I earnestly laid out the facts.

“There was only ever one pillow in this room. Even the maids say we aren’t particularly close.”

He turned to look at me and crossed the room in a few strides.

As he advanced, slowly and deliberately, I fell silent. I retreated until the edge of the desk struck my lower back.

Nowhere left to go.

His gaze caught the divorce agreement I had just finished writing.

He picked it up and read it carefully, his eyes lowered.

Flustered, I looked down, instinctively clenching my hands.

For some reason, this did not feel like a particularly good moment.

I waited in dread for his expression to turn cold, for him to sweep out of the room.

Instead, Shen Cizhou held the agreement to the candle flame and burned every last scrap.

He looked up, a slight smile in his eyes.

“Which blind little maid has been talking nonsense to you?”

He leaned closer, gently took my hand, and pressed his warm lips to my fingertips.

“Before you fell into the water and lost your memory, we had a quarrel.”

“You threw me out of your room. I’ve had to sleep in the study through this freezing winter.”

He raised his eyes to mine. They were moist, his expression obedient and aggrieved.

“The study is so cold, A-Ning.”

“Please stop being angry with me. Let me come back to bed. All right?”

I stared in alarm as he lied through his teeth.

Shen Cizhou had to have gone mad.

First, Shen Cizhou had called me “A-Ning” of his own accord. Then he had brazenly lied to his supposedly amnesiac wife while offering to share her bed.

Something had gone terribly wrong somewhere.

My thoughts were such a jumble that I did not drift off until well past midnight. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself curled in Shen Cizhou’s arms.

His chin rested on my hair. He was so close that I could almost hear his heartbeat.

Steady and distinct.

Then a possibility occurred to me.

A month earlier, I had heard the ladies of the capital discussing Hanguang Temple. Apparently, its gods and Buddhas answered every prayer.

Ask for a child and you would have one. Ask for success in your studies and it was yours. Ask for love and it would come… It all sounded wonderfully mystical, so I had gone to offer a prayer myself.

My wish had been for Shen Cizhou to like me, to cherish me every day instead of treating me with the same cold indifference as before.

His behavior yesterday had been so strange that he might as well have been possessed. Could my prayer actually have worked?

While I racked my brains over this, something warm touched my forehead.

A kiss, there and gone.

Shen Cizhou smiled, his eyes glimmering as though scattered with light. He seemed to be in an excellent mood.

Very softly, he called me, “A-Ning.”

I decided to return to Hanguang Temple to fulfill my vow.

I would settle my debt for the answered prayer and ask the gods to give me back the Shen Cizhou who hated me.

Ideally, once he came to his senses, he would be angry enough to agree to an immediate divorce.

The carriage wheels rumbled along. My head still felt a little dizzy.

Perhaps I had caught a chill when I fell into the water and hit my head. But I no longer cared whether going out in a snowstorm would make me worse.

Shen Cizhou’s marriage to me had been a mistake from the beginning.

I did not want that mistake to continue.

Halfway there, the carriage suddenly stopped.

Everything was silent. Even the driver made no sound. Uneasily, I reached to lift the curtain.

A long, slender hand caught it before mine.

Someone appeared before me against the daylight.

Wind and snow came rushing in. Snowflakes that seemed suspended in the air finally began to fall.

I stared at the man before me, my nails slowly digging into my palm.

White robes, black hair, devastatingly beautiful features—and a chill as bitter as frost and snow.

He caught my chin and lowered his eyes. His smile was careless, yet it sent cold through my entire body.

“…A-Ning.”

“Who gave you the nerve to get married behind my back?”